


Fragments of Memory

by roguewrld



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M, Not Miracle Day Compliant, Not Season 8 compliant, Post-BtVS, Post-Children of Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:57:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguewrld/pseuds/roguewrld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 4: John Hart is Spike. How he got there is a long story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragments of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> A story about how John Hart could actually be Spike. A VERY long outline resides on my laptop, spanning the long centuries between the end of Buffy and the 51st Century.

Linear Year 2010, Coastal Mexico  
Post Shrouded

The name on the antique shop is John Hart, which is as true as anything else you’ve called yourself in recent history. You’ve lived the kind of life where you have a lot of enemies, so you’re not sure at first who’s kicked in your door and pointing a gun at your head.

But the Supreme Alliance uniforms are a hint and maybe setting up shop on a rift in time wasn’t the best idea.

You draw your gun on the head goon. “The war is over. Your boss is dead. There’s no reason to do this anymore.”

The man shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We could have won, if you Time Agents hadn’t ruined everything. Greel said to kill you all. And we’re close. There aren’t many of you left. My job’s almost done.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.” You plug three of them before they hit you with the stunner net. All you can think is how few people are left that still have receivers for the emergency beacon in your back molar and how few of them have any interest in helping you.

As they black bag you, the last thing you see is the sun rising over the blue ocean. You know, deep down, that it’s the last sunrise you will ever see.

* * *

Linear Year 2010  
A Cantina, somewhere in the galaxy

**Jack**

The cantina was in a sleezy part of the galaxy and Alonso’s hotel wasn’t much better, but Jack finally felt like he’d run far enough away from Ianto’s ghost. And honestly, if the Doctor thought he needed to get laid, then he really needed to get laid. Alonso was a gift, a parting gift from a man he’d certainly see again, even if not with that face. He doesn’t know why the Doctor thought you could help each other, but he’s right.

Alonso turns out to be good company. He’s killing time during a suspension, and he tells you the second night about how he met the Doctor, about duty and finding himself willing to die if it meant the Doctor could save the rest of the passengers. This must be why the Doctor sent you to each other. That sense of duty, however, bit Jack on the ass the third night.

The klaxon went off an hour before dawn. It is a sound Jack has never forgotten, a Time Agent distress beacon.

Alonso rolled over and stared at the wriststrap for a few seconds. Then he reached over and started searching through the clothes on the floor.

“Going somewhere?”

“No, but you are.” Alonso found a sock and then Jack’s underwear. “It’s code mauve.”

Alonso had stayed at the wheel during a mutiny and a reactor crisis. He was a big believer in duty. In that moment, Jack wanted nothing more than to wring the Doctor’s neck for leading him here, because there was no way Jack could avoid answering the call and not have Alonso throw him naked into the night.

“Guess I am.” Jack turned off the alarm and looked at the display. Agent 37W-47P was in distress. John Hart was in distress.

* * *

It took Jack three days to track down the source of the transmission and hitch a ride back to the Sol System. The source pinpointed to an abandoned factory, in a half abandoned city in southern California. It took him three hours to kill everyone wearing a Supreme Alliance uniform. The last one wore a black hexagon pinned to the collar of his uniform, the badge of a Master Interrogator.

Jack hesitated at the door the Interrogator had died protecting. The Alliance had perfected the use of a Mind Flayer, a device banned in three galaxies. If John was still alive, and that was a pretty big if, his mind was gone. No human being had ever survived three days of sifting and come out the other side with any memory intact. They were shells that ended up in institutions.

Jack kicked open the door. John was strapped to a metal table, staring vacantly at a large flat panel TV bolted to the wall. “Damn it, John.” Jack flicked the safety off his gun. “Somehow, I’m not surprised it’s going to end like this.”

There was a sudden burst of static and the screen came to life. There was a woman, sitting on a porch. It was a memory. Somehow, John had held onto something.

Jack went back and took the neural interface off the Master Interrogator’s body. It was sticky with blood, but Jack put it on and slid the screen into place. A popup read .0001% memory remaining.

The Agency Medical team had conducted a research project once, on an Agent with less than one percent of memory intact. It had taken them four years, his parents, twelve ex-girlfriends, and a mind probe of his childhood dog, but it had worked. He’d woken up, and recognized his family and friends. He’d spoken, eaten, gotten dressed.

From that experience, they had created the Tapestry program and hardwired it into every wrist strap. If he sat down and ran through enough of John’s memories, the software might be able to put him back together. Maybe. Sort of.

Even the Agency’s version of Humpty Dumpty had never been ‘right’ after his experience. Yes, he’d known who he was, he’d be able to walk and talk, brush his own teeth. But he’d developed the unfortunate tendency to wander through the base naked and talk to people who weren’t there. He’d been retired from active duty.

You could do your best, but humans were the sum of their parts and no one spent their entire life in the presence of others. It would be impossible to bring John back all the way. Maybe it was better not to try.

The memory started playing again, and this time the neural interface took Jack along for the ride.

* * *

Linear Year 2000, California  
Fool for Love

You’re in the bushes, watching her. You step out from your hiding place, shotgun raised. She looks up when you cock it. Her face is streaked with tears. “What do you want now?”

She looks awful and you waver. There is no victory here tonight. She is already defeated by something else. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

You lower the gun. “Is there something I can do?” You know something’s gone wrong, something mundane that she can’t deal with. There’s only one option. You sit down, and touch her shoulder.

* * *

Linear Year 2010

The memory ended abruptly and Jack was startled. The garden was gone and he was back in the decaying warehouse. He ripped the interface off and stared at the screen, then at John. “Who the hell is she?”

There was, of course, no answer but he could guess. An assassination mission, probably tacked onto the end of a deep cover job. It was easy to get attached, but John didn’t *do* attachments.

There was a stack of hard drives on the table and Jack started collecting them. He would get a hotel, and get John out of this place. Then, he would try and put John back together again. It wasn’t just their history, or the fact that what had happened was unspeakably terrible. It was that John had always been a little bit of a mystery, and Jack hated not knowing things.


End file.
